Province earmarks $560,000 to fight opioid abuse in Calgary's south Asian community

December 8, 2017 1:08 PM

Along with new money to combat opioid abuse in Calgary south Asian community came a call Friday to break down stigma that hides addiction and even deaths.

The province earmarked $560,000 to fund treatment programs centred in the city’s northeast that will provide services in 10 languages following rising concerns about the crisis among ethnic groups there.

But government and community leaders said perhaps the biggest part of the challenge is to convince those in various ethnic groups to share those problems before they lead to more fatalities.

“The stigma is moreso within our communities where people absolutely do not talk about it,” said Ravi Natt, chairperson of the Punjabi Community Health Services (PCHS) which will spearhead the effort.

“Please do not let the veil of shame prohibit you from seeking help.”

PCHS members say some of the opioid deaths have been misleadingly called cardiac arrests.

Up until the end of September, 25 fentanyl deaths were recorded in northeast Calgary, though there’s no ethnic community breakdown.

Calgary’s the jurisdiction hardest hit by the crisis, with 170 deaths recorded in the first nine months of the year.

The PCHS program operating out of the Genesis Centre will centre on harm reduction with education, support groups, peer mentorship and youth hubs.

Another key to delivering those services is doing it in a culturally-effective way, said Alberta Associate Minister of Health Brandy Payne.

“They must be culturally-sensitive to the unique needs of families impacted by substance abuse,” she said.

Those efforts will also include the distribution of Naloxone kits which reverse the effects of opioids in emergency situations.

About 34,000 of the kits have been handed out across the province since 2015.

“This alone will save many lives on the front line,” said Natt.

Those kits will include instructions in languages such as Punjabi and Urdu, which is spoken in Calgary homes by 27,000 and 10,600 people respectively.

Drug addiction, said Natt, plays a prominent role in domestic abuse, adding tackling opioid abuse will reduce the other problem.

“It impacts the whole family,” she said.

Other communities can seek similar grants, noted Payne, though the application deadline for them is Dec. 22.

Up to Sept. 30, the province recorded 482 opioid-related accidental deaths compared to 346 for the same period last year, a 40% increase.

Some addictions experts in Alberta say the problem is likely to get worse before it improves, due to the drugs’ potency and the lucrative nature of trafficking in them.

The province has opened up supervised safer use sites in cities throughout the province and in Calgary alone created spaces to treat 1,100 more patients annually.

“These services will help but we have so much more work to do,” said Payne.